There was little point in responding; either I was good at my job as mayor, or I was not. And if someone thought I was sitting around handpicking recipients of routine government contracts at all—let alone doing so based on sexual orientation—then it was unlikely that they understood our administration enough to judge it on its merits anyway.
But things like this were the exception; the vast majority of the reaction fell into two categories: those who wanted me to know they were supportive, and those who wanted me to know they didn’t care. Both sets of responses were welcome. The comments from people who were impacted were certainly touching. I had not done this out of any desire to make a statement or bring about a public result, but the hundreds, maybe thousands, of emails coming into the city inbox made clear that my coming out had made it easier for at least some others. One young man from conservative Marshall County wrote of his family, “Their Christian beliefs tell them I’m living in sin and need rescued of my ‘wayward lifestyle.’ But having men and women like you serving the public makes it much easier for families like mine to accept their own sons and daughters.” People I had served with overseas got in touch—one who had volunteered with me on a risky convoy wrote to share that he was gay as well—many to express support, and others just to say hello, to ask how I was doing, with no mention of the article at all.
A couple weeks after coming out, I returned from a few days away for a conference and went to see my neighbor, Kathy, who had been picking up my newspapers and mail. She and Irv had retired from running a small business out of the home, and had lived next door for decades; I assumed they were politically conservative, but we usually talked about neighborhood stuff, not politics. I asked her how things were going, and saw tears welling in her eyes.
“Did your mother tell you what happened?”
No, I said, I hadn’t checked in with her. What was the matter?
She noticed I hadn’t been getting my paper. No irregularity in our neighborhood gets past Kathy, and by the third day she figured out that the paper carrier was skipping my house. So she confronted the delivery guy, and asked him why I wasn’t getting my Tribune. He said something about not wanting to give a newspaper to “one of those.”
Wrong answer. “Has he done anything to you?” she demanded.
“No,” he admitted.
I didn’t catch all the details of how she proceeded to let him have it. But by the time I had gotten home, the paper was arriving faithfully every day.
In my view, the biggest thing to turn the tide on LGBT issues wasn’t theological or political evolution. It was the discovery that many people whom we already know turn out to be part of this category. The biggest obstacle wasn’t religion, or hatred. It was the simple fact that so many people believed, wrongly, that they didn’t even know anyone who was gay. At my high school in the late 1990s, I didn’t know of a single gay student.
It is easier to be cruel, or unfair, to people in groups and in the abstract; harder to do so toward a specific person in your midst, especially if you know them already. Gays have the benefit of being a minority whose membership is not necessarily obvious when you meet one (or love one). Common decency can kick in before there is time for prejudice to intervene. Of course, humans can be cruel to people we know, too, but not as often—and we’re rarely as proud of it.
In the struggle for equality, we do well to remember that all people want to be known as decent, respectful, and kind. If our first response toward anyone who struggles to get onto the right side of history is to denounce him as a bigot, we will force him into a defensive crouch—or into the arms of the extreme right. When a conservative socialite of a certain age would stop me on the street with a mischievous look, pat my arm, and say conspiratorially, “I met your friend the other day, and he is fabulous,” it was not the time for a lecture on the distinction between a partner and a “friend.” She is on her way to acceptance, and she feels good about her way of getting there; it feels better to grow on your own terms than to be painted into a corner.
STILL, WE HAD NO REAL WAY of knowing in advance how coming out would affect the reelection that year. I had handily won the primary, the city was widely viewed as being on the right track, and my Republican opponent lacked a strong organization. But it was difficult to gauge whether voters would view me any differently now, as summer gave way to fall and November approached. Nor was it clear how much my popularity had been impacted by the many tough decisions of my four years in office. I still believed, as I had commented to Mike Schmuhl on election night back in 2011, that I could never be as popular as I was that night, because every difficult decision had to cost us at least a few votes.
One source of concern was an ongoing controversy over the police department, known around South Bend as the “tapes case.” It became an issue in early 2012, just a few months after I took office, when I relieved our police chief of his command in response to a federal investigation, though its roots went back to before I had even taken office.
Police issues had not been a major theme of the campaign in 2011, but it was clear by the time I first took office that the department needed attention. Rumors swirled of favoritism, opportunism, and cliquishness within the police force. There was little evidence of a real promotion system or documented officer evaluations, which meant that career advancement hadn’t fully outgrown the sixties-era norm in which your standing depended on popularity and political relationships. The place would need an overhaul, sooner or later.
But reforming the police department would be a major task, requiring new leadership, sustained attention, and political capital. In addition, while there were clearly management issues at the department, the current chief was well liked in the community. As the first African-American chief in our city’s history, he had been uniquely able to build confidence between communities of color and the department as a whole, and his track record of youth mentorship programs and other community work had paid dividends for the department’s vital neighborhood relationships. So, after interviewing him and two competitors for the job, I decided during the transition phase that I would reappoint him, and save major police department reforms for a future year.
It turned out to be my first serious mistake as mayor.
Somewhere during that transition phase, in the months before I took office, the internal politics of the department had boiled over. The chief, believing that some other officers were gunning for his job, alleg edly confronted them with tape recordings that could embarrass them if disclosed. He had access to these tapes because some phone lines in the department were connected to recording equipment used for interviews and investigations, and the officers had been recorded on that equipment without their knowledge. As court filings would later document, the chief threatened to take action against at least one officer he had come to consider disloyal. Perhaps the chief didn’t realize that I was already leaning toward reappointing him; or perhaps it just seemed like an insurance policy.